She's starting to walk!

Here is a quick video of Kira starting to walk...

(I have no idea why it is sideways, sorry)


It's hard to catch her on the video, because every time she sees the camera, she stops what she is doing and crawls towards me. She can take about 6 or more steps now, every day she is going further and further. It's very exciting to watch.

Pictures

Here are a couple of recent Kira pictures...

Having fun in the bath

Listening to her voice echo in the cup

Trying to grab the camera

Getting dragged around the house in the laundry basket

NYC!

Jon has just surprised me with the news that we are going to go to New York City in 2 weeks!! I have wanted to go to New York since I was about 12, so this is a dream come true for me. We are there Feb 5 - 9. Jon is there for work, he will be doing a presentation at Comicon, some big comic book show that people dress up for and everything. I'll try to take some pictures of the people dressed up as Star Wars characters. While we are there, we are hoping to meet up with our friends from Toronto, as well as Jon's cousins that are going to school somewhat nearby. 

Kira continues to grow by leaps and bounds each day. She is standing for longer periods of time, and has started to carefully take a small step to get where she wants to go. It's not much, but she is starting to get confidence in her walking. She will walk everywhere using her walker as an aid, and can cruise along the walls, couch, furniture, mom's legs, and anything else. She is talking constantly, and has started to say Mom, although I'm not sure she knows who Mom is yet.

She is also beginning to understand things that we say to her. For instance, she will wave when we say Hello or Bye bye, will clap when we say Yay, and when I sing her the bath song, she will crawl to the bathroom and stand at the bathtub. She is a pretty smart kid.

Kira will be starting her daycare integration on Feb 11. I'll be going with her for the first couple of times, then I will leave her there for a couple of hours. I'm sure that she will do fine with other people watching her, plus the other kids to play with. I'm more concerned about how I'm going to do!!  She will start daycare full time on March 2. I will start back to work on March 9. It's amazing how fast the time goes by, she will be 10 months old next week. She is turning from a baby into a little girl right in front of our eyes. While it's sad that she is growing up, it is a lot of fun interacting with her now.

The Hair Cut

Kira got her first real haircut yesterday. I was getting pretty tired of having to fix her ponytail (that kept her hair out of her face) a dozen times a day, and got inspired by my friend Wendy, who cut her daughters hair the other day. 

The results? Well, you be the judge. To me, she's always a beautiful little girl. I may have a slightly biased opinion though...

We're home!!

Well, we have finally made it home. We were given the all clear to move back yesterday afternoon, and we were settled back in by dinnertime. Many thanks to Grandma Rose for babysitting Kira so that I could move all the stuff back during the day. And to Jo + Yuetchi for letting us crash in your basement.

The house is pretty much the same as it was before the "incident" occurred. The only major items replaced were the hood fan and the stove top. They had to throw out all of Kira's toys, but she doesn't seem to notice or even mind. (Thank goodness memory is not well established at this age.) She really loves all the toys she got for Christmas, and her new musical toy that we borrowed from her cousin Marcus. It'll be fun to go shopping and replace all the toys.

In addition to throwing out all of Kira's toys, they also had to toss almost all of our food (spices too), plus cutting boards and anything else that was left on the counters. Everything else was removed from the house and sent to special cleaners - nothing has been returned yet, so the house is pretty bare. We have no blinds, electronics, linens, or clothes (except for the clothes we took with us). But it is ok because we are home! Kira has settled back in nicely, she is sleeping well and giggling a lot during the day. I think she recognizes her house, even though it looks a lot different than normal.

Oh! Jon + I were able to find daycare!! This was a huge relief for me. The daycares that I registered at 12 - 15 months ago were telling me "not to hold my breath" about getting Kira in for April 1. We called some family places and got her into one close-ish to work/home. It will be a little tough for transport, but it's a sacrifice we are willing to make to get her into a good daycare. 

Pictures, as promised

For your viewing pleasure, please find some outstanding photographs below. Christmas pictures will be posted on Picasa and Facebook.

The cause of the smoke damage in our place. This was a pot full of water and 8 bottles...

This is our kitchen. Note the beautiful hood fan.

So we have moved into Jo + Yuet-chi's place and inherited Leo. He has really taken a liking to Jon.

Kira seems pretty happy here, she gets to crawl and climb on everything. This is her eating cheerios and drinking her water.

And here she is talking to Jon - you can see her teeth too!

Update

Happy New Year!

Jon, Kira, and I are still in New West staying in Joanne and Yuet-chi's basement suite. The cleaning crew have started work in our place now, so hopefully we will be back home next week. Sounds like our place will be the cleanest place in our building. 

The restoration crew will be cleaning the ceiling, carpets, flooring, walls, baseboards, blinds, couch, electronics, and everything in between. They will repaint our walls and replace our track lighting (thankfully cause I hate the lights we have right now), I am trying to get them to repaint the doors and baseboards white, we'll see how that goes :) They also will send all our clothes and linens out to the drycleaners to get cleaned. Sweet, there goes the fear of doing 100 loads of laundry! 

Unfortunately, we will have to throw out all of Kira's toys that were in the living room - which is about 95% of her toys. So, I am sorry to everyone that got her a toy ever - even some of the Christmas toys (yes Maya, the elephant is a victim too). At least our insurance will cover getting new toys for her, and she got a lot for Christmas --- the ones that weren't in our house waiting to be opened on Christmas day. 

It's hard to believe that it will be 2009 tomorrow, even harder to believe that I will be back at work in 3 months! (If anyone has a lead on a daycare with room for a baby - let me know!!!) Kira had her 9 month birthday on Sunday, crazy how quickly time flies. She is starting to crawl properly here, no more army crawl. She is climbing everything too. Today she started climbing using only the wall as her support. She can also cruise along the furniture from one end of the room to the other. She is standing with no support for about 5 seconds or so, then she falls on her bum.  She still has not interest in using our fingers as walking support, but that will likely change soon.

We wish you all a very safe and happy new year, all the best in 2009. And Kira is very much looking forward to meeting her new friends this year Georgina and Liv!! 

Pictures of Kira's Christmas and the burn damage will be posted when we get home.